Death of an Englishman

  'What were you going to do, Cipolla? Tonight, once your sister and brother-in-law had left?'

  Cipolla lowered his eyes without answering, like a child caught on the point of stealing jam. All his reactions seemed to be on a child-like level, an imitation of the adult response, not fully developed. Was that perhaps why everyone ignored him when anything serious was afoot? As if they told him, 'Go out and find something to do, stay out of the room while the grown-ups talk.' It could also have a lot to do with his being so tiny. Had he felt like an adult when, for a few seconds, he'd held a gun in his hand and fired? Or had that been an imitation too, the man's death more or less an accident? To be followed by a child's attempt at suicide which might or might not succeed … probably not, depending on what …

  'What was it to be, Cipolla, the river? The bell tower?'

  Giotto's marble campanile was used quite frequently by suicides who were past caring about anyone who might be walking or driving in the busy square below.

  'Not the campanile,' whispered Cipolla, still with lowered eyes. 'I read in the Nazione about that old man …'

  A man of eighty-four who had left a note saying he was exhausted with the struggle of trying to exist on a pitiful amount of money which was hardly enough to feed his little black and white dog. He had jumped from the bell tower and crashed through the windscreen of a car, killing not only himself but the young girl who was driving. No one had thought of the dog until neighbours heard it whimpering two days later. There was no food in the house.

  'I didn't want to hurt anyone. I've done enough harm already.'

  'The river then?' No answer. So it was to have been the river. 'And you're what? Forty-two years old?'

  'Yes, Marshal.' He was sitting very still and upright. The unruly hair accentuated the impression of a school-boy. It was impossible not to think of Cipolla as the Englishman's victim. But the Englishman was dead and Cipolla was not, and the Marshal had a job to do, though he had never liked it less.

  'How old were you during the war?' he asked suddenly.

  'About six when it finished.'

  'Can you remember much about it?' He shouldn't be asking these questions, and yet, it was a way of giving him some attention.

  'Only bits, mostly towards the end when we had to leave. Our house was bombed.'

  'Couldn't you find shelter in the city anywhere?'

  'My mother thought we'd be safer in the country … she had a sister who lived further north, near Rome. She said there'd be food there, that there was always food in the country.'

  'And was there?'

  'No. For a long time we used to collect wild beet and fennel and nettles and boil them.'

  'Bread?'

  'For a while, until the flour ran out.'

  'How many were you?'

  'Four, including my mother.'

  'And your aunt?'

  'We never found her. The cottage had been bombed. Part of it was still standing and had been used by soldiers. The furniture had been used for firewood and there was a large hole in the roof. We lived in the barn until the planes came.'

  'Which planes?'

  'Every sort. English, German, American. They flew low and fired at anything that moved. I suppose there must have been soldiers about but we never saw any. There was bombing, too. I remember a lot of fires.'

  'Did you know which side you were on?'

  'Which side … ?'

  'The planes that came over, did you know which side you were on in the war?'

  'I don't think so … my mother used to curse all of them, Italians too, for trying to murder her children. I only knew I had to hide and keep still if I heard planes. I knew I was hungry.'

  'What happened next, when you left the barn?'

  'I'm not sure. A lot of moving about. We ended up in Rome because my mother said her sister must have gone there along with all the other refugees whose farms were ruined. I suppose she must have been killed but I can't remember whether we ever found out … I don't know how we lived in Rome but eventually we went back to the country where my mother and my brother and sister worked on a farm. I was the youngest …'

  'I didn't see your brother at the funeral?'

  'No, he emigrated to America as soon as he could, that is, as soon as I was old enough to work too.'

  'Did you like farm work?'

  'No, I hated it. I hated the country.'

  No wonder. After his first experience of it. Boiled nettles and strafing aeroplanes.

  'How old were you when you first came to Florence?'

  'Fourteen, a little more.'

  'And you came alone?'

  'Yes. It was the first time I'd ever been anywhere by train.'

  'Did your father … you had a father?'

  'He was killed in Greece.'

  'Go on. Tell me about coming to Florence. Where did you stay?'

  'In a hostel. The priest at home arranged it for me. I started by doing some cleaning work in a church here, but I soon found plenty more work and, eventually, a cheap flat in Via Romana.'

  'And then you got married?'

  'Not then, later. First my mother died and my sister came up here to live with me. She got a job in a trattoria run by some people we knew from Salerno. Then when she married Bellini she had her own home next to you …'

  The Marshal glanced at a white bowl with a plate on it standing on the refrigerator.

  'And then you married?'

  'Yes.' A strange look came over his face as they approached the present. Sooner or later, he must break down … better here than among strangers at Headquarters … even so, it might be wiser to wait until Carabiniere Bacci—and where the devil was he anyway? The Marshal filled their glasses.

  'Drink it up,' he said, watching him. How different would Cipolla have been if he'd had food when he needed it? If he'd grown to a normal man's size? It was useless to speculate. And there were thousands like him.

  'Who insures you? You work for so many people all over town.'

  'Nobody … I've got a small policy and we try … and we tried to save a little. We had no children, you see, so—Milena couldn't—'

  'So you both worked and saved … ?'

  'No, no … it wasn't like that …' He began to talk faster, loosing his hands from his lap to accentuate, to explain.

  It may be, thought the Marshal, that he's never really talked to anybody about himself in his life … or else it's the vinsanto. It was true that his face was a little pink.

  'It wasn't like that. I didn't want her to have to work. My mother killed herself working to bring us up alone … And then, what could she have done? Cleaning like me? She only had elementary education. And she had no children. It's one thing to do unpleasant work when you've got the pleasure of children to buy for, there's some point in that, but for her to do that sort of work and only me to come home to … Besides, I thought it would be good for her to live like a "Signora", be a bit special … Other women, you see, sometimes upset her—it wasn't that they meant to, I suppose they couldn't help it …'

  'Those with children, you mean?'

  'Yes … Even my sister —they didn't mean to … She used to cry in the night when she thought I was asleep. I always knew why.'

  'She wasn't bored at home?'

  'Bored … ? I don't think … I suggested she should take her Middle School Certificate—it only takes a year and lots of people like us do it now, at night school, but she wouldn't go. She was afraid of people knowing and thinking it ridiculous at her age … In the end I talked her into having some English lessons from Miss White. Nobody else needed to know and I thought it might take her mind off things, but it was no good … Miss White is very simpatica, very patient, but she doesn't speak any Italian and Milena didn't know a word of English, so …'

  'More tears?'

  'Yes.'

  The Marshal thought he was beginning to understand. Surely Milena had only agreed to play the 'Signora' to please him? What pleasure could she have in sitting at home alone when
all her neighbours either had children or worked or, more probably, both. It wasn't unusual; couples spent their lives doing a job or living in a place, thinking they were pleasing each other, never admitting how they hated it … What if that was what he was doing himself? For whose benefit was he a thousand miles away from his family? Would his wife really worry about the children having to change schools, or his mother be so upset about leaving her home village for the first time in her life? Or did they all imagine that he liked leading a bachelor life up here, since he always tried to hide the fact that he was desperately lonely without them? He made up his mind to sort it out this holiday. But just now he shouldn't be thinking about himself.

  'So all this time you were working hard and keeping both of you. It must have meant long hours … it's not well-paid work.'

  'No, but I don't mind long hours. I enjoy work, I like to go about the city, it suits me.'

  Naturally. No danger of open fields and planes, no nettle soup. He liked to trot in the shadow of huge buildings that had stood for five hundred years and more, surrounded by shops bulging with food! But mightn't his wife have liked it, too?

  'Your wife did go out to work at one time, didn't she?' They had to come to it some time.

  'That was after we found out about … the illness.'

  'She went to work when she was ill?'

  'We had no choice, in the end … the policy covered the operation but then I had to be off work … My sister did what she could, but with children to look after as well … Anyway, I lost some wages and we got a bit behind—I got everything straight in the end but there was nothing left … nothing for … and we knew …'

  They knew she was going to die and that too costs money.

  'The one thing she didn't want was to die in a hospital. A month or so after the operation she felt more or less normal again—they hadn't done anything, you see … they couldn't—she said she wanted to look for a little job, if only for a few weeks so that I would be able to afford to stay at home with her when …"

  So, in the end, she had escaped from the four walls, however briefly.

  Cipolla's face was very red. Perhaps the vinsanto …

  'When did you last eat?' asked the Marshal abruptly.

  'I can't remember.'

  'Today or yesterday?'

  'I … yesterday … I don't know … it might have been the day before …'

  The Marshal heaved his great bulk away from the table and took the white bowl from the refrigerator.

  'I couldn't take your meal, Marshal.'

  'I've eaten,' lied the Marshal. 'Before you arrived. And it was your sister who made this so I can't see any good reason why you shouldn't have some of it.'

  'Is she … will you … ?'

  'I'll go round there later.'

  When Carabiniere Bacci tapped gently on the door and came in, he was astonished to see the Marshal stirring a steaming pan of soup and the little cleaner sitting obediently at the table with a striped bowl and a plate before him. There was a second place set beside him.

  'Marshal? They'd already taken the bag away so I had to—'

  'Sit down,' interrupted the Marshal, and began ladling soup into their bowls as though he were feeding his own children. 'And when did you last eat? Eh?' he growled at the stunned Carabiniere Bacci.

  'Last night, sir …'

  'Well then. Eat, go on.' He began sawing enormous chunks of bread for them from a rough, floury loaf. 'Here you are. Bread. Eat it.' And he sat down, satisfied, to watch them.

  'After the gun, Marshal—they'd already found the hole burnt in the bag and traces of powder on everything inside, but the gun isn't there, so—'

  'Later.'

  When they had finished, the Marshal took their plates away and put them in the sink. The kitchen window had patches of steam in the centre of each pane. Around the edges he glimpsed the winter sun shining on the head of a Roman statue and the top of a laurel hedge where the Boboli Gardens began. He came back and sat down.

  'Do you mind very much, Cipolla, if Carabiniere Bacci stays with us? He's a good lad, a serious lad.'

  'I can see that, Marshal. And he's young and has to learn his job … I've caused you all a lot of trouble …'

  Was he even pleased to have an audience, for once in his life? Even so, he was too calm …

  'So … you needed the money because of her illness. How did she come to work for the Englishman?'

  'It was difficult to find anything. These days, it's not like when I started … and most people want somebody permanent. She couldn't lie about it. In the end I thought of something I'd tried before—I'd written to the heads of all the condominiums I worked for and asked them if I could clean their courtyards once a month as well as doing the stairs weekly—that's how I got straight when we were behind. So I asked each of my employers if they knew of any one-off jobs or temporary work.'

  'And you asked the Englishman?'

  'No, no, I didn't know him, though I'd seen him, of course. I asked Signor Cesarini because he's the head of that condominium and in charge of my work. At first he said no but then he changed his mind. He told me that the Englishman's flat needed cleaning up, that it was his property and he was disgusted by the state it was in. He said the whole place needed cleaning out but that it had to be done within about three weeks which meant full-time work just for that period. It was just what we wanted.'

  'So the Signora went to work. Did she like it?'

  'She didn't seem unhappy. It was dirty work, though, the whole place was so filthy, she said, it mustn't have been touched for years. Even so, it was a relief not to have to worry about the money business, to know that I'd be with her when …

  'Sometimes we used to have breakfast together in the bar—a thing I've never done, but we had to one morning because we were a bit late, she hadn't felt well in the night—she enjoyed it so much that I thought we should do it as much as possible. She liked me to collect her, too, in the evenings, so I changed my round and did this end last so that we could walk home together.'

  'Did your wife have a key to the Englishman's flat?'

  'No, never. He would get up and let her in himself and then go back to bed. Some people are like that; they don't trust anybody. Sometimes he would get up later and go out.'

  'He never objected to her coming? After all, it wasn't his idea.'

  'No … he just ignored her … Signor Cesarini had told her what to do, to clean the floors and windows, the kitchen and bathroom, but not to touch the living-room furniture or ever go in the bedroom. He used to lock the bedroom door when he went out, the Englishman, I mean.'

  'And he always ignored her? He never …' The Marshal hesitated, but the question had to be asked and it was better broached by him.

  'He never bothered your wife … tried to — '

  'No!' Cipolla blushed. 'Nothing like that—he never spoke to her! Never anything—'

  'All right, it's all right. I had to ask you because other people will.' The Marshal watched his face closely. 'Because if that were the case things would go easy with you, very easy indeed … a crime of passion …'

  'But that's not what happened.' Not a flicker of guile in his face.

  'All right. Just understand that that's the reason I had to ask, and why others will ask. It's no reflection on your wife. Now tell me what did happen.'

  'He didn't pay her.'

  'What, never?'

  'No. We expected him to pay each week at first but he always happened to be out on the Friday when she finished work. We began to get worried—mainly because Milena had found unpaid bills all over the house when she was cleaning. We talked it over and I decided to go and see Signor Cesarini. He laughed and said the Englishman was an old miser but he would probably pay up in the end.'

  'Probably?'

  'Yes. I told him we needed the money, that we had bills to pay—I didn't feel I could tell him the real reason, maybe I should have done but I couldn't—and he laughed again and slapped my shoulder. He said
, "Nobody pays bills in Italy! Forget it, enjoy yourself!" Milena decided to try asking the Englishman, although she wasn't even sure whether he understood Italian.'

  'And did he?'

  'Oh yes. He spoke with a strange accent but even so … he asked her. "Did I arrange for you to work here?" "Not you exactly, but—" "Who arranged it?" "Signor Cesarini." "So he'll pay you, not me. I have nothing to do with it." He told her to get out if she didn't want to do the work, that he didn't care either way and that if she made a nuisance of herself he would call the police and accuse her of having stolen from him, of being in his house without his permission, that Cesarini would back him up. When she still didn't leave he threatened her with the gun he kept on his desk.'

  'Wasn't she afraid of him?'

  'In her condition, why should she be?'

  'And you?'

  Cipolla lowered his head. 'He was a very big man. On her last day of work Milena decided that she wouldn't leave without her money no matter what he threatened. After all, she had nothing to lose. But when she got there he was out—or just not answering the door. She went back day after day but she could never get in and then eventually the illness began to take hold …'

  'How did you manage?'

  'I was at my wits' end. My sister gave me what she could and she came down and prepared some food for us each morning, then rushed back to see to the children. Neighbours came in, too. But it tired her to have people there she had to talk to, she needed me. She needed me and I couldn't be there … Do you know how much morphine costs? I don't understand how these drug addicts … And I'd promised to be with her, I'd promised …'